You both touch on my objection to judging based on blind stats comparisons. Thank you.

CalgaryRapsFan wants to compare stats of this year's crop of starting SGs to prove some point, yet these players play on different teams, with different teammates, playing different styles, with different opponent mixes, and a different schedule,,,,, and different ages, with different levels of experience. But you guys want to talk different age as the difference factor over stage of career? Okay, carry on.

I was pointing out a 3 year age difference which in the early 20's hardly creates an apple to apple comparison. If that was part of your point, awesome, glad to be of service.

Despite your explanation I think your argument here is grasping at straws. CRF was comparing players in the here and now with production versus contract. You raise valid points above with the differences but they are all paid under same salary cap rules and in the same season versus pretty much the same teams. To make your point you decided to compare two players 3rd year production both of whom played 13 years apart with 3 years difference in age. It is just my opinion but your example is hardly the same thing.

I really hope derozan can live up to the money he's making next season, so we can trade him. He has such bad footwork, and it sets him up to fail. I think that is what I hate about him the most.

I am pulling for him. I want to see him succeed in Toronto.

But I have to say my blood boils when I watch him go in weak for a drive. That pisses me off more than the inconsistency - which I guess can be considered part of the problem of consistency.

Remember when he tried to physically harm Hibbert on the missed dunk attempt but he was rewarded with 2 FT's? If he did that ALL the time he be scoring more than 20ppg. I hate it when he goes in soft and then scowls at the official. Do that everytime and there is NO issue with the official, DeMar!

2. The Raptors were not going to let him walk next year. So they signed him to the best deal they could before he hit the open market. Somebody was going to offer something stupid. Wasn't Taj Gibson given the same contract? The guy's 27-28 years old already and a backup.

Actually, this is the exact reason why we're having this discussion. They had until a couple months from now to make the evaluation of how much he's worth paying. Understand this: DeRozan was never going to hit the open market. We would have had every right to match anything anyone would send his way. Instead, they went ahead and gave him as much as some of his other draft year peers who have, thus far, completely and utterly outperformed him.

Looking at what he's doing right now, he's probably worth in the neighborhood of $5M per. Maybe $6M. The $3.3M is certainly a bargain, but in a few months he'll be getting $9.5M. He's simply not worth that much. Stephen Curry was offered around this much, and with the CBA the way it is these days, no one would have been able to offer him $9.5M, nor would they want to. Compare Curry with DeRozan, it's not even close. Curry is carrying his team into the playoffs.

Demar makes 3.34 million this year! I would say that he's putting up good numbers compared to others in his pay range don't you think???.....Overpaid? Let's say NOT YET! I can come up with a few names on THIS team who are OVERPAID BUT I think you guys are all pretty knowledgeable when it comes to this team

Do you guys remember Demar when he just came into the league??? Are you honestly going to continue writing posts whine'n about him not being a great player??? Sorry to hear that your expectations were so high, it was clearly unrealistic. Demar is in his 4th year and is a VERY GOOD player for us! Rudy (in his own words) said Demar is the best SG he's EVER played with. I think I would take his word over you incredibly consistent whiners.

I just hope you temper your expectations of TRoss because you WILL be dissappointed!

Can he defend his position? I'm still waiting for an answer. I was listening in on Paul Jones' comment today. He said that scoring in the NBA is easy. It's defense that makes you stick to rosters around the league. I tend to agree.

“The saving of our world from pending doom will come, not through the complacent adjustment of the conforming majority, but through the creative maladjustment of a nonconforming minority.” - Martin Luther King

But I have to say my blood boils when I watch him go in weak for a drive. That pisses me off more than the inconsistency - which I guess can be considered part of the problem of consistency.

Remember when he tried to physically harm Hibbert on the missed dunk attempt but he was rewarded with 2 FT's? If he did that ALL the time he be scoring more than 20ppg. I hate it when he goes in soft and then scowls at the official. Do that everytime and there is NO issue with the official, DeMar!

"Derozan to the hoop... No call!" - Matt Devlin (at least once every broadcast)

“The saving of our world from pending doom will come, not through the complacent adjustment of the conforming majority, but through the creative maladjustment of a nonconforming minority.” - Martin Luther King

His scoring is fool's gold. If Demar's isn't scoring, everyone around here would really be over his defense. My concern is that he is going to his fifth year and the first of his large, shiny new contract. Next year, there will be more expectations for scoring improvement when in reality it's his defense that needs to improve.

“The saving of our world from pending doom will come, not through the complacent adjustment of the conforming majority, but through the creative maladjustment of a nonconforming minority.” - Martin Luther King

Actually, this is the exact reason why we're having this discussion. They had until a couple months from now to make the evaluation of how much he's worth paying. Understand this: DeRozan was never going to hit the open market. We would have had every right to match anything anyone would send his way. Instead, they went ahead and gave him as much as some of his other draft year peers who have, thus far, completely and utterly outperformed him.

Looking at what he's doing right now, he's probably worth in the neighborhood of $5M per. Maybe $6M. The $3.3M is certainly a bargain, but in a few months he'll be getting $9.5M. He's simply not worth that much. Stephen Curry was offered around this much, and with the CBA the way it is these days, no one would have been able to offer him $9.5M, nor would they want to. Compare Curry with DeRozan, it's not even close. Curry is carrying his team into the playoffs.

Part of the issue with Curry was his injury history and risk.... but I digress.

I agree with your post though.

This detail is what separates the "best value contract in the NBA" list from the current list of which the Raptors have 4 players.

Why do I think that Derozan will continue to improve incrementally each year for the next 2-3 years?

Then he may well be in a position where all of his skills are integrated in a balanced manner and he makes a significant leap. If he continues to be a student of the game he should be getting smarter about his play. I know many of you have experienced that moment when some knowledge set or collection of skills is suddenly integrated, and then things become easy...and you wonder why you struggled so much. I suspect we might be on hand to witness this happening with DD. That's the primary reason I would hate to see him traded. I don't know where his ceiling is.

Actually, this is the exact reason why we're having this discussion. They had until a couple months from now to make the evaluation of how much he's worth paying. Understand this: DeRozan was never going to hit the open market. We would have had every right to match anything anyone would send his way. Instead, they went ahead and gave him as much as some of his other draft year peers who have, thus far, completely and utterly outperformed him.

Looking at what he's doing right now, he's probably worth in the neighborhood of $5M per. Maybe $6M. The $3.3M is certainly a bargain, but in a few months he'll be getting $9.5M. He's simply not worth that much. Stephen Curry was offered around this much, and with the CBA the way it is these days, no one would have been able to offer him $9.5M, nor would they want to. Compare Curry with DeRozan, it's not even close. Curry is carrying his team into the playoffs.

DeRozan is worth more that $5M per year. If that's all you think he's worth, what's the point arguing.

Curry is going to make $8M more over the length of his contract, so their contracts are not the same. Again, Taj Gibson has basically the same contract as DeMar. Why don't you compare those two instead?

1. Stats aside, DeRozan is a better basketball player this year than he was last year. He's never going to be a perennial all-star. I just want him to be the best above average basketball player that he can be. If he makes a couple of all-star games in his career. Great!

2. The Raptors were not going to let him walk next year. So they signed him to the best deal they could before he hit the open market. Somebody was going to offer something stupid. Wasn't Taj Gibson given the same contract? The guy's 27-28 years old already and a backup.

Demar is defintiely better this year than he was last year. I don't know how good he'll become but I appreciate players that add layers to their game in the off-season. This is your career, work at it.

His handles aren't strong and he has a bad habit of spinning in the lane on too many drives and losing the ball when contacted but he is young and I truly believe he could do himself a major favour to his career if he decided to invest a lot more energy in stopping his opponent. He has gotten much better at jumping passing lanes and fighting through screens and he could be far more valuable if he trasformed himself into somewhat of a 'stopper'. He'll have the physical frame for it in 2-3 years.

As for his contract my major issue with it is BC gauging the value of one of his players. I would like to let the market decide his worth this time around. I know the logic of trying to get a bargain signing him early to avoid other teams offering him a huge contract but I don't think that was forthcoming (Curry, Holliday got 4 yr 44million) and if you have to pay him a bit more so be it.

What if you could end up paying him less than you intended? With Andrea's renewal I think Colangelo overestimated what the league thought of him. I'm not saying Demar won't live up to his new deal but I have concerns with the quick re-up.

Can he defend his position? I'm still waiting for an answer. I was listening in on Paul Jones' comment today. He said that scoring in the NBA is easy. It's defense that makes you stick to rosters around the league. I tend to agree.

Is DD not sticking here? Did we not just sign him? Apparently he can defend his position (Kobe, Wade, etc obviously can't be stopped). You can say the same thing for ANYONE else on our roster (defending own position)....

DeRozan is worth more that $5M per year. If that's all you think he's worth, what's the point arguing.

Curry is going to make $8M more over the length of his contract, so their contracts are not the same. Again, Taj Gibson has basically the same contract as DeMar. Why don't you compare those two instead?

You're right Curry, is making a bit more but he's light years better than DeRozan. I purposely avoided Taj Gibson (who has a pretty bad contract too) for your benefit. Taj will make $5M less than DeRozan and brings everything the Bulls need at the position. Do you really want to compare the Bulls, who's starting lineup will be making $55M next year to the Raptors, who will be making $47M next year? With Rose they're a 60+ win team. We'll be lucky to win 40 next year.

Part of the issue with Curry was his injury history and risk.... but I digress.

I agree with your post though.

This detail is what separates the "best value contract in the NBA" list from the current list of which the Raptors have 4 players.

I guess you're right.. how much do you think he'd get if he were 100% healthy?

I think DeRozan is going to be worth $9.5M at some point in his contract, just not right and definitely not for the first season. I think you'll agree we'll have ZERO financial flexibility because of this. This contract is the same thing Colangelo gave to Bargnani when he thought Bargnani was improving and that it was inevitable that he'd get better. Well, he didn't. Same thing for Landry Fields, who was paid based on potential. I was just readidng another thread about Colangelo talking about extending Rudy Gay too. WTF is wrong with our GM?!

I have no doubt Demar will look like a bargain 2-3 years down the road. OBVIOUSLY, its on Demar to prove you haters wrong.

2-3 years down the road proves what I've been saying. I'm talking about financial flexibility. There's absolutely no reason to pay a guy how much you think they're going to be worth 3 years from now. As it stands based on your prediction, we could have had around $3M extra to spend over the next two years.

I guess you're right.. how much do you think he'd get if he were 100% healthy?

I think DeRozan is going to be worth $9.5M at some point in his contract, just not right and definitely not for the first season. I think you'll agree we'll have ZERO financial flexibility because of this. This contract is the same thing Colangelo gave to Bargnani when he thought Bargnani was improving and that it was inevitable that he'd get better. Well, he didn't. Same thing for Landry Fields, who was paid based on potential. I was just readidng another thread about Colangelo talking about extending Rudy Gay too. WTF is wrong with our GM?!

Bold: Exactly. It is when I finally stopped thinking Colangelo had a plan. For all his talk of flexibility all he has to show for it is..... um, nothing.

As for Fields, I'm giving him a pass right now. If you look at his stroke from rookie to now, it is night and day. If he can get back to his 1st year percentages, I like him on the Raps - really do. That is a big IF though.

As for Rudy, he is definitely overpaid now, next year, and following at $19M. If he could get a deal in the $13-14M range, I think that is fair. I also thinK Rudy is better than he has shown. If he can return to career %'s and the Raps find a better offense than jump shot after jump shot..... more IFs. Ah sh!t, we be fudged.

I think we're in agreement and it kind of shows the contrast of opinions in this thread. I too like Landry Fields, just like I like DeMar DeRozan. I think people see criticism of his contract and assume the person hates that player. My least "liked" player is Bargnani, I think that much is obvious. But when we're playing pretend GM, which I do all the time and is pretty much the point of having a forum to discuss the team, then that's when I have to step back and evaluate things differently.

I'm an advocate of evaluating players based not just on their own numbers but on circumstances. To me, player evaluation has to evolve. It's a moving target that is determined based on their performance relative to different things like pay rate, other players on the team, comparable players on other teams and their own development. I can't just look at stats and say this guy is worth this amount of money, period.

Take Amir Johnson for example. A lot of guys will say he's a steal now and simply accept that when you look at the contract in its entirety it was worth it because on average he made what he deserved. Well, that's fine if you want to look at it right now at this single moment in time. But when you think about 2 years where he wasn't worth that amount, a chunk of financial flexibility was sacrificed each year so that you could enjoy the steal THIS year. Hurray! We got a steal two years later, meanwhile we're going to win 33 games this year. When you look at Landry Fields, it's the same thing.. at the time of his signing, it seemed like a big mistake (to say nothing of the circumstances under which we signed him). $6M for a guy earning less than $1M the year before, where that guy regressed from his rookie year? Yikes.

Will he one day earn that salary? Possibly, but you're still talking about overpaying him for at least a year maybe more. Like Amir Johnson, he could one day step into a role where he's worth that amount but why not wait until that time before offering him that type of contract? DeRozan is the same situation, we offered him $9.5M but to me he's just an athletic version of Courtney Lee. He's not a ~$10M player yet. Far from it.

Everyone harps on DeMar for being a bad defender; defending is something you learn with experience in the NBA nobody is a stellar defender coming right into the league so young and if they are its players with nothing else to provide i.e specialist job players like Dominic McGuire and James Johnson. Not everyone is going to be Lebron James who does everything at a rather high level guys, temper your expectations for what he is at the moment DeMar is pretty impressive and he can only get better with how much work he puts into refining his game.

Everyone harps on DeMar for being a bad defender; defending is something you learn with experience in the NBA nobody is a stellar defender coming right into the league so young and if they are its players with nothing else to provide i.e specialist job players like Dominic McGuire and James Johnson. Not everyone is going to be Lebron James who does everything at a rather high level guys, temper your expectations for what he is at the moment DeMar is pretty impressive and he can only get better with how much work he puts into refining his game.

DeMar isn't a rookie. He's had plenty of time to become a good defender.

You're right Curry, is making a bit more but he's light years better than DeRozan. I purposely avoided Taj Gibson (who has a pretty bad contract too) for your benefit. Taj will make $5M less than DeRozan and brings everything the Bulls need at the position. Do you really want to compare the Bulls, who's starting lineup will be making $55M next year to the Raptors, who will be making $47M next year? With Rose they're a 60+ win team. We'll be lucky to win 40 next year.

Why are you avoiding Gibson for my benefit? The point I was trying to make is that you have to overpay to keep players that are coming off their rookie contracts. Chicago did it with Gibson. The Raptors with DeRozan. Is Ty Lawson really worth $48M? He's good but not that good.

I'm not comparing the Raptors with the Bulls, you are. It has nothing to do with the conversation.